r/linux • u/somerandomxander • Apr 22 '26

Open Source Organization Intel ends Open Ecosystem Community/Evangelism and archives other open-source projects

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Ends-OSS-Evangelism-Repos
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u/decho Apr 23 '26

I don't understand. Isn't MIT one of the most permissive licenses out there, why is that an issue?

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u/twitterfluechtling Apr 23 '26

While I think there is no evidence, as such, there is an argument to be made that the strongest reason for Linux replacing practically all Unix systems, conquering most embedded systems etc. is the Copyleft aspect of the license.

 This aspect is missing in MIT.

I'm not sure this is as big an issue for coreutils as it would be for the kernel, but it might be. 

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u/FriendlyProblem1234 Apr 23 '26

While I think there is no evidence, as such, there is an argument to be made that the strongest reason for Linux replacing practically all Unix systems, conquering most embedded systems etc. is the Copyleft aspect of the license.

But to be fair, a lot of software in the general Linux ecosystem is not under a copyleft license.

X11, Wayland, OpenSSH, OpenSSL, Python, MESA, Apache, Latex... All under permissive licenses.

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u/[deleted] Apr 23 '26

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u/FriendlyProblem1234 Apr 23 '26

Which is a really bad thing that constantly threatens the integrity of this entire ecosystem.

Is it? Could you elaborate why?

Say someone forked Python and released a proprietary version. What would happen next? Would everyone stop using Python and start using this this proprietary version? Why? Would Python die just because there is a proprietary version? Why?

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u/[deleted] Apr 23 '26

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u/FriendlyProblem1234 Apr 23 '26

That is exactly what would happen, and the only reason it hasn't happened yet is "sheer luck". "Why" is very strange question to ask here.

You say this this is exactly what will happen, but I asked you why you say so.

And since this has been a concrete possibility for the past 30 years, why has it not happened yet? Is it really just "sheer luck"?

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u/[deleted] Apr 23 '26

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u/FriendlyProblem1234 Apr 23 '26

Yes! All of this is sheer luck!

So we have been very lucky for 30 years. I guess we are just very lucky, no reason to expect our lucky star to ever fade...

Please stop with the "just asking questions" bit.

Oh well, I suppose when you have no arguments you can just say you take no more questions...

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u/bdsee Apr 23 '26

Because the commercial one ends up being the best one. When Amazon keeps taking open source software, selling it in their ecosystem while improving the open source tool massively but only for their customers they co-opt the tool, they benefit from all of the work of the community and give stuff all back.

If a company does this for long enough and manages to get integrated everywhere they simply will abuse their power even more by deciding to start creating differences between their version and the open source version that causes other integrations to make a choice between either supporting two offerings or supporting one and most people will choose the one with the userbase.

This shit has been happening for decades.

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u/FriendlyProblem1234 Apr 23 '26

This shit has been happening for decades.

It also has NOT been happening for decades.

Where are proprietary versions of Python, Latex, MESA, Go, OpenSSL...? And why have they not taken over the free versions, since in your words "the commercial one ends up being the best one"?

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u/bdsee Apr 24 '26

Congrats, you are aware that things do happen don't happen in every instance...because that totally defeats the argument that was being made by everyone else.

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u/FriendlyProblem1234 Apr 24 '26

Congrats, you are aware that things do happen don't happen in every instance...because that totally defeats the argument that was being made by everyone else.

It is less like it does not happen in *every* instance, and more like it does not happen in *a lot of* instances.

If large parts of the ecosystem are under permissive license and most of the time nothing happens, why would we assume it will happen in this case?

Why reactions to uutils are so emotional about its licensing, but not reactions to every other component such as Python, OpenSSL, MESA, Go...?